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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume 1, Issue 23, 1 February 1873, Page 2

William Kerr-' Nesbitt; Esq., has been appointed Auditor of Counts of Lew Trust Accounts for the district bfWaiapu. Sergeant Blake, of the Napier Rifle Volunteers qnahfled for the Nelson competition, with a score of 78. Orlando ' bn?.—Tha date for receiving entries for this cup is postponed to Saturday the Bth of February next. Secretary to Road Board. —At a Board meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Lysnar was elected to the post of Secretary to the Board, in the place of Mr. Webb resigned. Objections to Road Rates.—The Board held extraordinary meetings on Wednesday and Thursday last principally to hear objections to the Assessment list. There were but 8 objectors, making in all 13 objections. Two of which were clerical errors; reductions were made in six out of the number. It appears that we are not alone in having a long catalogue of oomplaints against the Government. The Bay of Plenty Times of the 15th ult. thus forcibly reminds the authorities of their obligations on tho subject of the “ most disgraceful state of things” in the Survey Office there;—“We allude to the impossibility of obtaining any information at the District Survey Office, on the subject of land, for farming or other purposes. The fact of this want existing has been painfully patent within the lost few months. Intending settlers have como here from Auckland and the South, importuning for information at the Survey Office. The officers of this department, though most willing and efficient, have been obliged to say that there is no datum in the office from which reliable information could be gathered. We look on this as most culpable neglect on the part of the Government, and as a disgrace to any community. Is it likely that the country lands in this district will everr-we repeat, evef—become settled if persons, willing and anxious to reside here, liave to leave again merely because they cannot get any information ? Does it not stand to reason that these persons return from whence they came, or to some district more highly favoured, and to which the Government do all they can to induce settlement—say, for example, Hawke’s Bay; and tell their friends and acquaintances that it is no use coming to Tauranga or Opotiki in search of land, that their doing so would be merely waste of time and vexatious disappointment? * * * We conceive it to be our duty as journalists, free and unpledged to any particular party, to bring this just and "bitter grievance prominently before the public, and trust that under the admirable system in vogue among newspaper proprietors of interchanges of files, this stigma on the Gouernment may become known over the length and breadth of the colony, and that that mighty agent public opinion will work a cure.”